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Month: August 2014

An ESL school has recently been trying to use Moodle as a learning platform. I say ‘trying’ because so far, it has been a resounding failure. And to most people, it comes as a huge surprise because Moodle has been hailed as the best LMS for online learning. It comes in at #12 on the list of top 100 tools for learning.

But it’s not surprising. While Moodle is a very powerful and customizable learning platform, there aren’t many people that take the time to understand how to unleash its power, properly.

In the case of this particular school, no training has been provided so far, teachers don’t even know whether they should log in or not, and students have shown little to zero interest. The design of the school’s Moodle site is neither captivating nor intuitive. The content is repetitive and redundant – the administrators are using course book listening activities which the teacher will do in class, uploading them to Moodle, and adding gap-fills and true-false questions to supplement classroom learning. While an online platform should encourage everyone to go paperless, students are given paper worksheets to answer questions found on Moodle. The future of Moodle in this school appears to be bleak. (more…)

A key event in my life was when I moved to Singapore at the age of 15.

My father was transferred to Singapore and so, I studied from Grade 10 to 12 in an international school there and completed my schooling. I was excited because I had lived in several cities in India but it would be the first time I was moving abroad.

Shifting overseas changed my life as I was exposed to a variety of cultures, not only in school but also around me. Living in such a diverse environment helped me develop an understanding of the importance of a globally interconnected world.

I feel it changed my life in a good way because I got the opportunity to study a different curriculum in school which allowed me to pick a range of subjects from humanities to science as opposed to India where you need to specialize in one of the prescribed streams. This helped broaden my horizons.

I would like to talk about the Sri Lankan town of Galle. It was a town built by the Dutch several hundred years ago and retains the Dutch style of architecture. The streets are quaint and narrow with shops on either side selling a variety of tokens for tourists. The Galle fort is, now, on my list of magnificent historic sites.

However, the most impressive historic place I have visited is the Palace of Versailles in Paris. Having been the erstwhile seat of the French royals, it is a splendid sight showcasing beauty and opulence together.

It was during my holiday to Paris that I managed to visit the Palace and many other famous sights such as the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre Museum. It was a lovely holiday and Paris is indeed as beautiful as everyone says.